Anyway read my posts, understand what I'm sharing with you. Nope I'm not the guy spilling the beans, I'm the guy who is posting.
I think the real value of this thread, as I've speculated before is I believe I've stumbled on a major source of how leaks and rumors have been been consistant yet seldom have been accurate when it comes to finished products.

So we have Deep Mac, stating he has proof of "Workstation Macs" working on no less than Proof-of-Concept hardware.
I do not know if you have ever done any professional Quality Assurance, but in the hardware biz it is not uncommon for a computer company to seed development machines with the intention of testing Technologies rather than testing a complete product. So with this mind, if Deep Mac, Dorsal, kormac and who ever else has laid eyes on similar hardware it would explain the consistancies in the postings yet the products in the end fail to materialize. Are they lying? I don't think so. I think they may very well be working on prototype hardware but they are not clued in to the hardware's ultimate purpose. Again, not to test a complete product, but rather test components that may or may not end up in a finished product.
How does Apple keep their hardware secets safe?
Simple, no one outside of Apple sees them, at least not the whole product except very late into the development cycle when Apple sends the finished products to specific vendors which have a long history of keeping their mouths shut.
The bottom line here is, NO ONE has a clue, merely a few tidbits here and there. Aside from Worker Bee, and maybe someone else at Apple that is willing to share dirt, everything you read on the Net and elsewhere is basically bogus.
But that's not why we're here is it?
Relax, be entertained, and go from there.</strong><hr></blockquote>

[quote]Originally posted by GardenOfEarthlyDelights:
<strong>Now, the question is whether or not he's legit. I doubt it. The true Apple/Mot employees seem to be clammed up tighter than my first girlfriend. This guy could be some third-party supplier, or an industry "insider" without any direct Apple ties.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Usually as a rule of thumb I don't believe anyone who uses too manny "..."s in his/her posts. I don't know why, but that "..." stuff makes the posts very cluttered and it seems like the people using it can not form sentances or even think in a, er, "rounded way". It's just lots of stuff posted between the dots and if he had really some inside info he could post it with a beginning, main point and a conclusion and a lot shorter than what he did. Besides, he throws around with numbers too much.

More info from my freind, See his earlier letter (its on Page 3) for background info:

"Hey ****,

Things have gotten strange here. Apparently the higher ups have decided on the new term for gigaflop, SJ wants to call it a "Giga-Gasm"

Some of the engineers have protested, wanting to stick with the techincally accurate 'gigaflop,' but SJ flies into a rage at any such suggestion. I was walking by his offfice and I heard him screaming at a marketing specialist 'I'm not going to call them flops! I won't market a FLACCID mac! I'm all man! All man, d'y'hear?'

His new marketing slogan for the G4 is apparently up in the air, but i've heard a few of the following candidates:

"Its Width that matters" (apparently refering to command pipeline width)
"Intel will sap and impurify your bodily fluids" (no clue)
"the G4 - like viagra for cyber-sex"
"Steve jobs still has it"
and
"Its not the meat, its the motion."

I can't say any more, I have to go, apparently we're all going to have pelvic exams this afternoon, Johnson came back crying from his, muttering something about SJ's 'cruel cold metal ruler.'

I hope I make it to Wednesday.
-**************** "

Well, i hope he doesn't have a problem with me posting this, but it sounds like he has bigger problems

[ 07-29-2002: Message edited by: Agent Cooper ]</p>

this is the way the world endsthis is the way the world endsthis is the way the world endsnot with a bang, but with a wintel machine

This is the last e-mail I got from my freind at apple, and I think it might be the last i get for awhile. He does have some insights into the case design, but they're more gruesome than I'd like to hear.

"Dear ****,

Its all over now, but I'm still shaking. Things@ Infinite loop were more than crazy this afternoon.

First of all, SJ sealed of the Apple campus, and all radios were confiscated. I was allowed to keep my iPod (now I know why they don't put AM recievers on them). When it was time for me to report for my pelvic exam, I was scared stiff. The only thing in the room was a metal table, a mean looking doctor, and the new G5 case. Lets just say I found out what those holes on the front are for.

The doctor wasn't cute or freindly, and he produced a metal ruler with "You must be shorter than this to continue working under Steve." written on it and an arrow pointing to the 5" mark. Its a good thing that ruler was cold, or I'd be applying for a job at Dell tomorrow.

After we were all done with the exams, SJ came on over the P.A. system and let us know how things stood. P.C. users were preparing to take over the campus, we were to defend Infinite loop at all costs, and that the people who came at us may look like our own men, in black turlenecks and all. "Remember," he said as he finished,"Performance is our Profession."

I went to see SJ in his office, he was distracted, busy scribbling on a legal notepad, something about "Purity of Essence" or "platform of extremists" or "Performance of Ethernet.." or something...

That was when all hell broke loose. Conspirators against apple had started to over run the campus, hunting for photos of new PowerMacs.

We spent the next few hours in the dark, running performance benchmarks of photoshop on the G5 Proto, SJ muttering about how women still sensed the power of his mac, and they still sought it out. When he was done, he sat, sweating, leaned against his desk, the G5 clenched to his chest.
He kept saying "Performance will get up, I'll get it up. Only I can get it up... I have to get it up... i'm all man!"

After he fell asleep, the campus was falling apart. The men who broke down the door weren't wearing dell uniforms, or Gateway holstiens. They were from Pfizer. They told me that they had an 'interesting new blue pill' for Steve, and that things would be normal again tomorrow.

I need to get out of this place.

By the way, Wednesday is off, I'm leaving town.

- ******************* "

I'll keep you informed of how his therapy goes.

this is the way the world endsthis is the way the world endsthis is the way the world endsnot with a bang, but with a wintel machine

Funny, my friend said something similar. I don't think I want to repeat it here, because it's downright terrifying. Something about everyone one campus getting anal probes to identify the "mole". Steve Jobs performed all of them, he's said to have gone through a box of latex exam gloves--the sort that reach up to your elbow. The exam table was slick with blood and feces. I won't go any farther...

Guessing about new PowerMacs and processors can be based on what we hear or see, or what we can logically concluded from facts we already know. I think KidRed takes the second approach.

We know Apple needs workstation power and needs it soon to run those high-end video applications. There is no practical PPC processor on the charts that can do the job soon. So this seems to indicate a custom chip is on the way. IBM is in the business now of doing custom processors, witness the G3 based chip for Nintendo. It does not take a psychic to figure out that IBM could make a Power4 based chip for Apple. Some parts can be left out, and other things can be added. It is custom. A choice of who should make a custom chip is no contest. IBM is more likely to deliver on time and to Apple's specifications. So it seems to makes sense. We just have to wait to see whether it is so.

[quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:
<strong>Funny, my friend said something similar. I don't think I want to repeat it here, because it's downright terrifying. Something about everyone one campus getting anal probes to identify the "mole". Steve Jobs performed all of them, he's said to have gone through a box of latex exam gloves--the sort that reach up to your elbow. The exam table was slick with blood and feces. I won't go any farther...</strong><hr></blockquote>

Rumor has it that during the ordeal Steve got a flash of light, a premonition, some would say Devine intervention, as to what the next "Break Through Device" will be... So far no one knows what it will do... my sources only know the name.... Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "iPoop".

No, seriously though I heard that the next set of PowerMacs will be faster than the current ones. I hope I didnt just violate an NDA or something else for that matter.
:eek:

From Macnn boards...subject? Future/performance of 'power'Macs. Re: the fpu on the 'power'Mac compared to x86 counterparts...

"The 7450 has four parallel integer processing pipelines but only a single floating point pipeline. Adding pipelines means a higher transistor count but also an increase in throughput as you've got multiple pipelines all operating in their own context. How do you think nVidia and ATi make such fast graphics processors? They certainly don't have a single pipeline everything is run through. The Athlon has three out of order fully pipelined floating point execution units. It is no wonder the Athlon totally whomps on the competition in raw FPU performance, it gets more floating point operations done per clock than either the P4 or G4. The only thing keeping the P4 in the race for fastest processor is its ginormous clock speed advantage. The G4 needs greatly expanded floating point capabilities in the form of more execution pipelines because a majority of software doesn't use AltiVec instructions thus are stuck using the single floating point pipeline and performing badly compared to other processors. Even if people hopped on the AltiVec party bus they would then be limited by the lack of double prescision FP math which oddly enough many programs find a use for."

I thought that made interesting reading.

I hope we get extra fpu in the 7470. Probably not.

Maybe in the 7500? If one exists...

Lemon Bon Bon

...and more from...Macnn forums...

"I imagine that's why Nvidia, in their presentation and preview of their NV30, showed a migration from the 32bit Int precision for their 3D to 128bit FP precision in their chips (all multiple pipelines). Let's not count out the example of the Athlon that was mentioned, where in 3D performance, it usually stomps the G4 by a measure of about 2x or more (same with the P4 but not because of a superior FPU) because of the additonal FP Pipeline resources. The P4, which, in order to alleviate dependence on the stack oriented x87 FPU, added the necessary resources to do both single and double precision FP operations within their SIMD unit, something which Altivec doesn't currently do (I imagine that you could do DP in Altivec with some code tricks, but it would negate any benefit).

So, the rest of the industry is moving or has moved towards double precision FP and multiple FP Pipelines within their products. Why shoudn't the G4/5 have additonal resources added to its relatively weak FP? Because you don't know what applications take advantage of DP FP (anything scientific or requiring precise numbers can benefit)? The G4's FPU needs improvement. It does DP, but needs additional pipelines to compete with other processor families. At the very least, Altivec should have DP added to provide a complete solution for developers that need the resources (and at least show a direction from Moto). As it it right now, if you need the precision, you'll use the one FP Pipeline. The same code on either the Athlon or P4 is going to run faster."

Any thoughts?

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is...

"What some of you people don't understand is that there's no magic rule that makes a chip able, or unable, to be used in a desktop computing application. It's just that some chips are more targetted at particular markets. The 74xx family are embedded processors that happen to be pretty nice for desktop applications. The 85xx family is a freaking system-on-a-chip that is really pigeonholed more into an embedded application. As I said in my last post:

The only G5 processors, for ANY market, embedded or otherwise, belong to the 85xx family.

All this proves, however, is not that the desktop G5 must be something else, but rather that Motorola isn't concentrating on the desktop market at all anymore with the G5."

...and if 'they' aren't. Maybe IBM will.

Y'know. There seems to be an awful lot of smoke about Moto and Apple parting ways. Rumour sites are full of it.

If the 'G5' 8XXXX (from Moto) is embedded only...in its current and planned incarnation...that leaves the 7470...which we kinda know about and the 'pulled from Moto's website' 7500... Which may be the 'canned' 'G5'.

Which leaves us with a 7470 on Rio next year and not a 7500?

Smoke signals. Difficult to read.

I know the mods didn't like the irumour link but...it's another 'source', valid or not...saying the same thing. Moto out. Somebody else, presumably, in.

Lemon Bon Bon

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is...

I have shared all I can without getting anyone in unnecessary trouble. From what I know (which may or may not happen) is G4's up to 1.4ghz are planned but possible that MOT can't deliver 1.4ghzs in quantity. New mobo with same processor, 333 DDR and new bus at 166. Scheduled release on the 13th, however having problems installing video cards and may not be ready by then. New case (possibly the one leaked has) air flow problems and vents were added. Same situation in January but with new mobo and faster G4s. This time next year IBM will take over in place of MOT with a POWER4-core scaled down desktop. Also, possibly an AMD x86 box that dual boots X and windows within a year or 2. These both are being worked on but not guarantees that the AMD box will be released for quite some time.

Most of this is available in some form or another on the net somewhere and I don't know too many specifics and wasn't told many either for obvious reasons. That's all i know and I can't ask anything. This is the first time I've gotten something juicy and just wanted to pass it along without getting flamed as I have no history of talking thru my ass

some guys here should read more Ars Technica : they explain one important thing about the Athlon and his FP unit : these FP unit are specialized.
The FP unit of the G4 is alone, but is able to perform any operation, it's not the case of the Athlon even if the FP unit are fully pipelined (at the difference of the P4) the FP unit are specialized, they are not able to make all the operations. In certains case you can have 3 FP operation in a row, in other just one.
If you clone the second FP unit of a G4 you will have in most cases 2 FP operations per cycles. that will mean that the G4 with 2 fp unit who will be better at equal mhz than the Athlon.

I have heard that one machine will be available and the other two will not for at least a month or two. I have also heard from the same person but this cannot be said with a lot of confidence that there will not be a dual machine.

I have shared all I can without getting anyone in unnecessary trouble. From what I know (which may or may not happen) is G4's up to 1.4ghz are planned but possible that MOT can't deliver 1.4ghzs in quantity. New mobo with same processor, 333 DDR and new bus at 166. Scheduled release on the 13th, however having problems installing video cards and may not be ready by then. New case (possibly the one leaked has) air flow problems and vents were added. Same situation in January but with new mobo and faster G4s. This time next year IBM will take over in place of MOT with a POWER4-core scaled down desktop. Also, possibly an AMD x86 box that dual boots X and windows within a year or 2. These both are being worked on but not guarantees that the AMD box will be released for quite some time.

Most of this is available in some form or another on the net somewhere and I don't know too many specifics and wasn't told many either for obvious reasons. That's all i know and I can't ask anything. This is the first time I've gotten something juicy and just wanted to pass it along without getting flamed as I have no history of talking thru my ass </strong><hr></blockquote>

Again, the story about IBM being the next chip supplier for Apple re-surfaces.
I'm seriously beginning to wonder.
Could Apple be in the process of porting OS X to the RS/6000? (Power-4 based RS/6000 workstations have been reported popping here and there)Is the RS/6000 being used (again) as a test bed for Apple?
Anyone who either works for IBM or has connections with them heard anything about a change in the AIX roadmap recently?

&lt;Shaking Deep Mac furiously: "Speak you Fool! Show ME WHAT YOU SEE!!"&gt;
And there Deep Mac sits, dumb and silent...

[quote]Originally posted by Bodhi:
<strong>I have heard that one machine will be available and the other two will not for at least a month or two. I have also heard from the same person but this cannot be said with a lot of confidence that there will not be a dual machine.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Does that suggest they don't need the dual gimmick? Will a single G4 on DDR outperform a dual considerably?

This is quite exciting!

James Savage - "You can take my Mac when you pry it from my cold dead fingers"

[quote]Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon:
<strong>"Also, possibly an AMD x86 box that dual boots X and windows within a year or 2. These both are being worked on but not guarantees that the AMD box will be released for quite some time."

But...why a dual boot AMD box? What is the logic in selling Windows and Mac OS X?

Am I missing the obvious?

Unless the 32 bit x86 decoder on the Hammer chip is engineered...also with a PPC decoder.

You could run x86 and PPC.

But why? To see which OS you liked best?

To get Apple extra sales from x86 folks and 'defectors' from the Apple platform who need both?

ie you may give M$ a sale...but you're also giving...Apple a sale they may not otherwise have...interesting...

Concerning the AMD box, from what I know, is that a lot of companies would only buy Apple machines with x86 processors in them. Also, the ability to run windows inside X like classic opens a lot of possibilities or 'options' as Steve put it. They have the finder running on a x86 box already. This would be the ultimate 'switch' campaign.

I have no idea what chip, wasn't told any specifics. The new case had some issues where it didn't cool as well as current QS's and thus was redesigned to add vents, so the leaked photos may be them. Apple has been working on a new mobo but has had issues with it, it should be ready 5-6 months which would mean a Janurary release. But I'm under the impression it would just be a faster G4 not the next gen stuff like the power4 core scaled down due out this time next year hopefully.

Concerning the AMD box, from what I know, is that a lot of companies would only buy Apple machines with x86 processors in them. Also, the ability to run windows inside X like classic opens a lot of possibilities or 'options' as Steve put it. They have the finder running on a x86 box already. This would be the ultimate 'switch' campaign.

I have no idea what chip, wasn't told any specifics. The new case had some issues where it didn't cool as well as current QS's and thus was redesigned to add vents, so the leaked photos may be them. Apple has been working on a new mobo but has had issues with it, it should be ready 5-6 months which would mean a Janurary release. But I'm under the impression it would just be a faster G4 not the next gen stuff like the power4 core scaled down due out this time next year hopefully.</strong>[/QUOTE

On the surface the idea of running Windows inside of another host operating system sounds compelling, the problem is it's been tried before and the plan backfired.
Within OS/2 version 2.0 - 4.x you could run DOS and Win16 applications within OS/2 quickly and effeciantly. Alot of developers at the time used OS/2 to write Win16 applications because of the stability the OS/2 underpinnings provided.
But, instead of improving OS/2's marketshare, it created another problem entirely for developers. Why write native OS/2 applications when it runs Windows applications so well? For consumers there was a similiar sentiment. Why spend extra money on a native OS/2 app when this Windows app runs so well? The rest as we know is history, aside from some highly specialized markets OS/2 has been largely forgotten.
I fear if Apple tried a similar approach with OS X, the results would be the same IMHO.

Well I'm not totally clear if the windows emulation is on the same box as the dual boot or if that's just another plan of theirs. I don't think it's a bad idea. Think of how many windows only companies they pic up. My interpretation is x86 line to pick up existing windows only companies and a power4 core for current pro mac users. Not sure how they'd market it and it's a year or two off but the finder is running on an x86 box so they are working on it. Maybe it's just another 'option' for Steve but lately he does seem gun-ho about getting some of the windows market share.

... unless the Native Mac version apps had hugely compelling options that interacted with the Mac OS in a way that Windows could barely even hope to emulate, I think history proves the rule on this one.

For now, as great as OSX is over XP, it's services and other Mac only interactive features just aren't enough to overcome this hurdle (vs the ease of programmers just coding for Windows), at least not quite yet.

In life, as in chess, the moves that hurt the most, are the ones you didn't see ...

[quote]Originally posted by anand:
<strong>Did anybody see the report at Macrumors about the new powermac. That story was pulled so fast, the pictures must have been real!</strong><hr></blockquote>

I saw it. Trouble is, somebody in AI noted that the other casing had the exact same reflections and lines in the clear plastic case as does a picture from Apple.com/pr. I checked it out and this guy (or gal) was right.

Canadian Motorola rep' says 'G5' for desktop isn't even on the Motorola radar! So no 'G5' from Motorola.

The article in total made very interesting reading for me.

Y'know...bringin' up the whole X86 vs XPPC debate!

The 'G5' we get is probably the 7500. A .13 G4 at 2 gig on Rapid Io? The Rio mobo' itself marking it a 'G5'.

But After that? Well, the 8xxx series from Moto's seems to suggest no G5 for desktop. The Canadian moto' guy seemed to say as much. ie he wasn't aware of it.

Do the 7470 or 7500 show up on Moto's CPU pdf?

IBM it seems. But it looks to me Apple may be moving away from the whole 'G' idea. 'G6' from IBM? Or 64bit 'G5'? A new chip...better to come up with a whole new naming convention.

There was an interesting mock up of the vent Mac on macblumours. A mock up of the photo published. Looked okay. Airbrushed quite realistically in the 'cease and desist' style of photo.

Guy on Arseytechnica ('Armpit', I think his name is... ) sez 7470 Macs..., 'nothing special' about them. The ones to watch for will be the G4 ('G5') 7500 which needs loads of cooling. Hence the 'massive' heatsink. Due Jan' 2003.

So...Moto' are gradually leaving the platform? 7500 will be the last Moto chip to come...and gradually migrate down the food chain of Macs?

For the next year or so...Moto' will keep supplying the desktop CPUs they have already developed upto and including the 7500.

The 7500 hands the batton over to IBM for the Summer? 2003?

Hmmm.

Lemon Bon Bon <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is...